Wrath of Earth

[Ross Scott]

Genre: Action

Year released: 1995

Ross's rating: Unrated

Link to game: http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/wrath-of-earth/screenshots

Free to play: No

GaaS: No

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[Endys Hambu]

Seeing anybody acknowledge this game, even as a little nod, makes me way happier than it should. Screenshots don't really do it justice. It's got piles of atmosphere: Your equipment is unreliable, breaking down at the slightest provocation and sometimes not working as expected in very subtle ways (Space Beast Terror Fright would later do something very similar), but it's keeping you alive. The opposition packs a considerable punch. Your suit is solar-powered, but objectives are often in dark areas, forcing you to dive in and get out as quickly as you can. This is one of those cases where the System Shock-era clunk, although painful to deal with today, adds to the experience, like Space Hulk '93.

The music is good for AdLib stuff. The first level's track sets a fairly bleak, oppressive tone, which certainly fits being thrown into the deep end like you are here. I'm a little disappointed that it didn't keep that same attitude throughout, but it might get depressing fast.

Is it perfect? No. Does it hold up particularly well now? Absolutely not; the maps are made of blocks like Wolf3D and some of them are frustratingly labyrinthine. But the devs cared; the game drips with attention to detail, in things as subtle as your temperature gauge creeping upward if you step near magma. This one deserved better than to quietly die in Doom's shadow.

[BeatCrazed]

I'm astonished to see Wrath of Earth here as well. I slogged through the demo and didn't bother looking for the full game. Endys is absolutely right in their assessment, the game has a bunch of cool stuff, energy and equipment management, multiple objectives through levels with several entrances and exits and whatnot.

Sadly there are some big misses. For example: Although you have a bunch of equipment which can be damaged separately, you can't prioritize what to repair. Because (iirc) armour is last on the repair priority list, you pretty much have to repair everything to regain combat effectiveness anyway. So close to a cool system and yet it didn't happen.

One more big miss: Your standard attacks always aim at the center of the screen. The game uses a arrow keys to move and turn, and mouse cursor to interact with things system and the game would be much more playable if your shots would just go where your damn cursor is pointing. There's also no keyboard strafing, but you can click the mouse on the bottom left or bottom right of the view window (but not the screen) to strafe. Without mouse aiming, mouse cursor aiming, or keyboard strafing, combat is very difficult to do with more sophistication than tanking enemy fire and laying into them in return. 
It's unfortunate. The combat would be fine with mouse aiming, of course, but cursor aiming would allow you to dodge as well by turning to a funky angle and shooting off to the side while dodging back and forwards. Keyboard strafing (or mouse strafing where you don't have to precisely click on the corner of the view window) would also solve the problem.

I would love to see a video on this game but I don't think it's worth Ross' sanity.

Edited September 7, 2023 by BeatCrazed (see edit history)